I don't know if we have the whole story. At one point the article talks about the Russian coal containing less sulfur and more heat content. That would lead me to believe it is anthracite as opposed to bituminous. Most anthracite in this country is deep shaft mining and most bituminous is open pit or mountain top. If the price of the Russian-possibly-anthracite is less than US anthracite, which is far more expensive to produce in the US, I could easily understand the power company's choice. Our dipshits in USEPA have made it pretty much impossible to burn lower priced bituminous coal.

Forget about the sanctions the ‘President’ imposed yesterday – basically trying to ice Russia out of the credit markets, which will likely backfire and get Russia to do more currency deals (China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and several other nations are hard at work in Fortaleza, Brazil creating a new development bank that will compete against the US-controlled World Bank). The new ‘Sanctions’ are generally around credit activities – Russian banks and capital markets and…weapons producers – no more AKs imported to the US!!!

We certainly don’t want to cutoff Russian energy companies because; a) Europe would openly tell us to piss off, and b) the coal mining restrictions in the US have virtually destroyed new mining production, so we’re now importing coal from Russia.

Add to that, Keystone is being blocked again; on the one hand you have Tom Steyer the former pro oil and coal hedge fund manager that now has a massive investment in ‘renewables’ including Chinese companies producing solar panels and has pledged $100mm to help elect Democrats, and Warren Buffet who’s trains carry all of that oil from Canada and the Dakota’s…poor old coal has no voice in the Dem Party anymore now that most coal states have gone or leaned Republican I guess.

I don't know about this .. a close relative is management with Union Pacific. I asked whether Obama is having any effect on the volume of coal UP hauls out of mines out this way. "Hell, no." They're meeting all their delivery commitments while also hauling more to the West Coast as export to China. So why's this plant having trouble getting coal? I suspect media malfeasance.

We need to give credit where credit is due. Only the Obama Administration would have seen the need to go to such a close and dependable ally as Russia to supply something we have in such desperately short supply as coal, our stores of which could run out sometime in the next millennium. And to top it off, Obama didn't let a little thing like Putin's repeated humiliations of him personally get in the way of giving Vlad the Impaler an opportunity to do it again.

To be fair the Obama Administration had little to do with this deal. The power plant contracted with an international energy trader for a load of coal with XYZ specifications. The trader found a supplier that matched their needs and facilitated the transaction. The government stayed out of the way, at least as far as this individual deal goes. We can argue, however, that the Administration's fear of pipelines made it necessary by clogging the rails with oil trains and crowding out coal logistics.

This story is really about spot market economics, the fact that we are shipping oil all over the place in the middle of the country since we don't have pipeline capacity, and the fact that coal is a worldwide commodity market.

InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.